Texas A&M System Audit To Be Released This Spring

Texas A&M University More than 17,000 jobs are being scrutinized within the Texas A&M System for an ongoing audit looking at how the system operates.

Chancellor John Sharp wants to know if there are ways to save money to redistribute to education.

News 3 takes a look at that process.

Accounting Firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has been putting some 17,000 non-teaching related positions within the Texas A&M System under the microscope to see how efficiently the system is operating.

Walter Daugherity is the Texas A&M Faculty Senate Speaker as well as a Computer Science Professor and is on the advisory committee for the audit.

"Basically it's intended to look for ways to improve efficiency in the administrative structure and of course the faculty are always interested in doing things more efficiently but we want so see better service at a lower cost and not vice-versa," said Daugherity, Ed.D.

As the audit continues there are some ongoing concerns about employee morale, with people worried about what their jobs will look like in the future.

"People are concerned about their jobs and want to make sure that they are treated fairly in any consolidations that might result from this," said Daugherity.

PricewaterouseCoopers will be making recommendations once the audit is complete.

But Billy Hamilton, the Chief Financial Officer for the Texas A&M System, says it's too soon to say if that would mean outsourcing, layoffs, or consolidating positions.

"Chancellor Sharp feels like it's important to have a financial plan for the Texas A&M System that's financially sustainable and we, you know are in an era where limited resources from the legislature. There's always a danger will lose federal funding because of cuts," said Hamilton.

The audit report is expected out later this spring.

"Our goal is a university that both costs less and works better so you know the people who work here work hard and certainly we want to make sure that they keep working for the university," Hamilton added.

The audit advisory committee is meeting next week with an update on the status of the audit research.

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Clay Falls joined the KBTX news family in January 2010 and is excited to be covering the Bryan/College Station area. Prior to joining the Brazos Valley news leader, Clay was a reporter for more than two years with CBS 19 in Tyler-Longview, Texas.